Gas: Banner Energy moves to launch 1000 LPG plants

By Yemie Adeoye & Elohor OkagbareBANNER Energy, a wholly owned indigenous company with operations in the gas sector has commenced moves to roll out about 1000 Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) retail plants throughout the country.

Minister of State for Energy

The Chief Executive Officer of the company Mr. Nuhu Yakubu, while speaking to select Energy correspondents over the weekend in Lagos stated that the company is committed to achieving this due to the lamentable level of gas utilization by Nigerians.

According to him the general awareness of Nigerians on the safety as well as other advantages of gas utilization is very low.Â He said Nigeria is the country with the least consumption of gas in Africa even with the countryâ€™s position as one of the major producers of gas in the world.

He however stated further that the Banner gas project is aimed at basically helping Nigerians purchase gas at the most affordable rates, because it is cheaper and safer irrespective of what is being said or the general belief of an average Nigerian.

The company, according to him is also working to roll out about 3 to 5 million gas conversion kits in order to encourage Nigerians to also consider the usage of LPG to run their cars.

The energy expert who appears very passionate about gas and its level of under-utilization in a country where it has abundance stated also that solving the Nigerian power problems is a very easy feat to achieve. He observed that with the consistent attacks on gas pipelines across the country it is still very possible to solve the major problems ravaging the countryâ€™s power sector.

He said that cryogenic tanks could be made available at an instance by his company and this would be used to hold high quality gas through to the power plants, as a replacement for pipelines which are being sabotaged intermittently.
â€œThe banner gas projet is design to help distribute gas to the Nigeria market in a way that would be affordable for the masses to consume. We design the banner LPG system, and it is designed by Nigerians, specifically by our scheme of LPG engineers and built by our partners in Germany, and we are proud to say that our systems are the safest LPG gas systems in Nigeria today.

We are also introducing quite an ambiguous Liquefied Petroleum Gas projet in Nigeria, because we want to role out about 1000 LPG gas systems through out the country. Its a network of 1000 banner gas plant in partnership with one of the majors like Oando for example. The idea is that we want to liberalized the way LPG is consumed. what we are saying is that LPG gas which is abundant in Nigeria and in most cases even fled can be a good source of fuel for the few Nigerians out there that still suffers under the use of kerosine and firewood .

The banner gas plant is designed for the consumer as a pay as you can afford basis which means you can come to any banner gas plant and buy gas according to what your pocket can carry. As we know today if we were to buy gas at a gas plant or any petrol station or any road side gas seller you just need to take your cylinder there and exchange it, or at gas plants where you can actually refill your cylinder to specific volumes, You say okay you are buying 4.5 kg or you are buying 50 kg but there is nothing like anything in-between. There are set volumes you can buy.

But the Banner gas plant has made the Nigerian people the opportunity to buy gas according to whatever volumes they want. It also has given us the opportunity to brand our cylinder.

You can now decide to put whatever you want on the cylinder because you have gone to the market to buy cylinder which has been tested to see that it is very good and it is of better quality and its not leaking.

However, at some point you may have gone to work and your wife puts on the cylinder and sees that it is not working, and just exchange with a seller and you lose the opportunity of enduring that beautiful cylinder you have invested on.

This are bad strategies in the industry which should be stopped., the reason is because regulations has not been at its best and also the industry has not seen the kind of investment that it should have seen in the past years.â€ he enthused.

According to him the Banner gas initiative now allows Nigerians to write their names appropriately on their Cylinders and thus have a sentimental attachment to what actually belongs to them.